lese majeste can be compared to the insult law…
the king can do nothing when he;s attacked.
it’s the responsility of state to protect him as the head of state, without right to protect himself.
it can be endless discuss on this issue with different standpoint…between republican and who are not…
sometimes it sounds like debating which religion is better than another…
TAXI DRIVER
OF coz in terms of the formality, i do not want junta.
but for the recent years in Thailand, we have to think about kind of REALPOLITIK…to see what happened to
I do not deny the excellence of election box – leader at all. Yes we SHOULD go that way.
BUT i do not agree that we can let that kind of leader to do whatever he wants after he won the election even harassing the ideology of democratic state. Do not forget Hitler of Nazi Germany or Marcos of the Philippines, who was eventually toppled with the help of military…wrong style to make regime change, right?
In Thai politics you should not be too NAIVE to think that Thai politicians are loyal to the democratic spirit and idealogy.
There are many times that politicians cooperated with junta, such as in 1992…and even worse they agreed to crush the people . So you see not only military alone who did the worst thing.
You also have to get real and consider that the situation in recent years was very different from before.
and do not forget that in the course of 10 yrs there’s no coup in Thailand. DO consider and examine the events in ‘real time’.
Do not be naive to see that only ‘royalists’ took part in anti-Thaksin movement. Or Thaksin, or former regime, did nothing to harm the democratic system…he is the “lord-protector of democracy’…
In the course of almost 10 yrs Thai politics could manage its own problem without military intervention. But what happened to the former regime then?
Surely, it’s quite great to cherish and talk of perfect ideology but do not forget the ‘fact’ or context which can harm ideology and not only a -solo- factor, who is the problem.
nganadeeleg: Thanks for the link. As you noticed, the panel has also problems comprehending the German system, although it really is fairly simple, both concerning the underlying principle of representation and the calculation of seats.
Thanks again, Srithanonchai.
This was in todays The Nation: Meanwhile, Constitution Drafting Assembly member Pichian Amnartworaprasert yesterday met Withayakorn Chiangkoon and his government-appointed charter panel.
He said the panel was in favour of a national religion, but wanted the draft reworded to ensure minority faiths in the country were not discriminated against.
The Withayakorn panel proposes the Senate be either elected or a mix of elected and appointed members, Pichian said, adding that a fully appointed upper house would be a “step back for democracy”.
The government panel is against adopting German-style elections for the lower house, whereby half the members are elected and the other half are selected from party lists via proportional representation. This is confusing, the panel told Pichian.
The panel proposes maintaining the party-list system, having only one member elected per constituency and not giving judges additional political roles.
Personally, I do not like the ‘first past the post’ system and prefer the number of seats each party gets to closely approximate the percentage of votes they received – that just seems fairer to me.
“IMHO Rather have junior reading this book than smashing bottles at the local pub, getting girls pregnant, and experimenting with yaa baa.” >> Is there only the alternative of reading this book or being deviant? Seems to be too narrow to be.
nganadeeleg: Matichon (May 6, p. 11) has another article on proportional representation in Germany.
In fact, this piece is mostly a summary of a paper prepared on the German system by Ajarn Prinya of Thammasat University, also one of its vice rectors. He graduated in law from Germany.
Unfortunately, his presentation is not correct and rather confusing, which is why he says at the end that the bad point of the German system is that it is complicated. Not so.
For example, he says that the calculation is done based on the state level, i.e. in Germany’s 16 states. That’s wrong. The first step of calculation is to allot all the seats in the national House to the political parties, based on a) the number of total MPs in the House, b) the total number of party-list votes (after having subtracted all those parties that did not make the 5% threshold or gained at least 3 constituency MPs), and c) the party-list votes every party above 5% and at least 3 seats has received at the national level.
Only the second step concerns the state level. And the distribution of seats is just as simple as in the first step. This time, one will need a) the number of MPs a party was allotted in the first step, b) the number of party-list votes a party got in the respective state, and c) the total number of party-list votes of that party at the national level.
In both cases, the method employed is Hare/Niemeyer. After the party-list MPs of a party in one state have been calculated, the constituency MPs it won in that state are subtracted. If the number is higher, it can keep the seat(s), and won’t get any additional party-list MPs in that state. If the number is lower, the number of MPs is filled up by candidates from the party list.
If Thailand, the procedure would be even simpler, because you could use the national level and, perhaps, only four “regions.”
By starting with the state level, Prinya muddles everything up, and his examples confuse even more.
Thanks for this example of cheesy journalism in The Advertiser. I read it as a big incentive for someone to do a better job.
Namely instead of painting idiotic rosy pictures that exoticise the pitiful Burmese situation or add to the Soros funded horror story Burma genre, that people inevitably just zone out on after 20 years, like myself, read about the zillionth rape murder in the Burmese jungle, but what good is a story like this going to do after 20 years of these stories over and over again.
An elite commando brigade of baby Thaksin entrepreneurs being carefully raised in the jungle to defeat the evil junta with the forces of capitalism, that would be more becoming of billionaire Soros, after all he’s a businessman isn’t he?…etc, etc…something like that , might provide some hope.
IMHO Rather have junior reading this book than smashing bottles at the local pub, getting girls pregnant, and experimenting with yaa baa.
Good parents shelter their kids in Thailand, until they get to a western country for their overseas educational and English fluency building experience, that is, but by that time they are probably ready to handle it.
BTW sometimes these overseas study jaunts go wildly wrong. I met one poor misguided Burmese kid being sheltered, looked after, and nursed back to sanity, by his compatriots at one of the Burmese merchant marine haunts around town (Bangkok).
The kid was in a pub in Australia, when a redneck (every country has them) gave him a hard time about being Asian. He just stuck his head down, swallowed his pride, and left, but….he came back the next day and burnt a random car parked in back of the pub. Was finally kicked out of Australia after participating in a demonstration that damaged the Burmese embassy in Canberra. Burma is a tragedy, agreed.
The use of lese majeste and the extraordinary efforts made by the state to control the king’s public image suggests that, contrary to what so many people claim is the universal love of the Thai people for their king, there are in fact many people who would not hesitate to criticize the king and the monarchy, and especially the king’s undermining of democracy in Thailand, if only they had the opportunity to freely do so. This criticism is in fact already expressed in code – in the criticism of Prem, and especially (as Somsak has pointed out) of “sakdina”, which one finds now even in daily newspaper columns. The real test of the king’s popularity would be to abolish lese majeste. This concept of the “beloved king” is purely the public image that has been manufactured by the ratchakan and maintained by its media monopoly, lese majeste, and the appallingly deceitful attempt to turn the king into an object of religious devotion – similar to the Mao cult during the Cultural Revolution. What these people “love” is a chimera. This chimera is the only thing standing between the control of the ratchakan state and real democracy, which is why the ratchakan defend it so vehemently.
Thanks for the link to Michael Connors.
I didn’t know about his work.
Can get his books in Thai libraries.
But the papers are in unlikely journals.
Too bad. Wish scholarly publications relevant to Thailand were more widely available in Thailand.
Good point at the end.
The army hasn’t been violent yet,
but that’s the way 1992 started,
but that’s probably why they stuck
Surayud in there, so things wouldn’t be so
confrontational like they were under Anand.
Plus everyone criticises the military for worryiing
about Thaksin and not being more assertive, but
that non-assertiveness, responsiveness is highly
correlated with the non-violent nature of things
so far. Let’s hope it continues.
AFREETHAI, the solution is not to manage the profit, but to eliminate the profit (i.e. corruption) altogether.
In a democracy the people elect politicans to represent them. Do you think a general is a better representative of the people than a politician? Would you rather have a Junta in power than a politician? Remember, to remove a junta from power you often need to have lots of people die in the street and intervention from on-high; to remove a politician you only need to go to the election box. Which system would you rather have (and believe me you can’t have both).
Would you accept a junta who took power without claiming “pra mahakasat phen pramuk”?
To the Thai monarchy, it makes a lot of common sense to nurture constitutional democracy. A dictatorship is dangerous to the survival of the Thai monarchy . . . that is obvious isn’t it?
To what extent is press freedom a reflection of freedom within a nation? I would argue that the Freedom House ranking is simply an attempt at judging national liberalism. Doesn’t this in the end create further polarity because those in a liberalised society become judgmental and less understanding of those who are not in the sense that they are supposedly less free?
Nicholas, The Advertiser is perhaps the worst paper in the country. If one of their journalists went to Burma they would probably try and build a Ray Martin stupa upon finding enlightenment. After building the stupa, the disinformation would continue unfortunately as the resulting articles would be a diatribe of gonzo, erratic confrontation that really they should have gone to Koh Samui.
I say this, and my father is reading it downstairs.
The version I heard from a Kachin jade merchant linked to the origin of the manau to the ancestor of his clan, which was not the standard Maran, Lahpai etc, but a rather small clan that was limited to the Hkahku region. I can’t find my notes right now which has the clan name. Anyway, in this version, the boy was born with the ability to speak from birth, which scared his mother, so she left him in a tree to die. While in the tree, the birds assembled and planned the dance, and it turned out the boy could understand their language as well, and hence got the ritual of the dance. Later, he managed to persuade a passing stranger to rescue him and when he grew up he initiated the dance.
I suspect there are several different versions beyond the ones Tara and I have heard. I’d be really interested in hearing any Singhpo versions. I suspect the bird element of the story stays constant- since that is a completely plausible origin, but other details may vary.
James Klein on the coup: “It’s always a danger and traditionally when there’s been a coup in Thailand and there are, this is now the 17th, since 1932, this would probably be the first time that there wasn’t some political agenda.”
“Was Thaksin good or bad for Thai democracy?
Answer: Thaksin was the worst thing to happen to Thailand’s democracy.”
Sure was. Plenty of evidence for that. But, he didn’t get rid of parliament completely, he didn’t get rid of free speech completely.
“Is Thailand’s King good or bad for Thai democracy?
HMK Bhumibhol is good for Thai democracy …definitely.”
Evidence or faith-based? The only serious studies suggest otherwise….
“HMK was a counterbalance against abusive leaders, democratically elected or otherwise.”
And who counter-balances an abusive palace, crown property bureauen, crown prince, etc.?
“But overall,
HMK’s record to help Thai democracy flourish is positive.”
What, like 1976 and 2006??
Has the recent coup been good or bad for Thai democracy?
For removing Thaksin who was the danger to Thai democracy, VERY GOOD. But let’s wait. Let’s see how the junta handle the delicate redrafting of the Thai constitution and the election to follow after that.”
Who are they going to sue? Who are they going to arrest?
YouTube/Google didn’t produce the video. Greedy American businessmen didn’t produce the video.
What is Sitthi going to do, hire a Thai special forces team to hunt down the maker of the video , kidnap him like Adolph Eichmann style, and bring him up on charges of crimes against humanity, only to have the king pardon him?
Actually, that sounds like a cool movie.
Can you imagine a Thai special forces team in their camoflauge dropped in the middle NYC, given the mission to kidnap the YouTube producer, and bring him back for the trial of the century?
Pls remember that who toppled the old regime in 1932?
In fact it was military. Was that the overture of military influence in Thai politics?
The solution is how to manage the profit between them and politician…where’s the people then?
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YouTube vs Thai dictatorship: The saga continues
lese majeste can be compared to the insult law…
the king can do nothing when he;s attacked.
it’s the responsility of state to protect him as the head of state, without right to protect himself.
it can be endless discuss on this issue with different standpoint…between republican and who are not…
sometimes it sounds like debating which religion is better than another…
Has the coup been good for democracy?
TAXI DRIVER
OF coz in terms of the formality, i do not want junta.
but for the recent years in Thailand, we have to think about kind of REALPOLITIK…to see what happened to
I do not deny the excellence of election box – leader at all. Yes we SHOULD go that way.
BUT i do not agree that we can let that kind of leader to do whatever he wants after he won the election even harassing the ideology of democratic state. Do not forget Hitler of Nazi Germany or Marcos of the Philippines, who was eventually toppled with the help of military…wrong style to make regime change, right?
In Thai politics you should not be too NAIVE to think that Thai politicians are loyal to the democratic spirit and idealogy.
There are many times that politicians cooperated with junta, such as in 1992…and even worse they agreed to crush the people . So you see not only military alone who did the worst thing.
You also have to get real and consider that the situation in recent years was very different from before.
and do not forget that in the course of 10 yrs there’s no coup in Thailand. DO consider and examine the events in ‘real time’.
Do not be naive to see that only ‘royalists’ took part in anti-Thaksin movement. Or Thaksin, or former regime, did nothing to harm the democratic system…he is the “lord-protector of democracy’…
In the course of almost 10 yrs Thai politics could manage its own problem without military intervention. But what happened to the former regime then?
Surely, it’s quite great to cherish and talk of perfect ideology but do not forget the ‘fact’ or context which can harm ideology and not only a -solo- factor, who is the problem.
Back to the 1970s
nganadeeleg: Thanks for the link. As you noticed, the panel has also problems comprehending the German system, although it really is fairly simple, both concerning the underlying principle of representation and the calculation of seats.
Back to the 1970s
Thanks again, Srithanonchai.
This was in todays The Nation:
Meanwhile, Constitution Drafting Assembly member Pichian Amnartworaprasert yesterday met Withayakorn Chiangkoon and his government-appointed charter panel.
He said the panel was in favour of a national religion, but wanted the draft reworded to ensure minority faiths in the country were not discriminated against.
The Withayakorn panel proposes the Senate be either elected or a mix of elected and appointed members, Pichian said, adding that a fully appointed upper house would be a “step back for democracy”.
The government panel is against adopting German-style elections for the lower house, whereby half the members are elected and the other half are selected from party lists via proportional representation. This is confusing, the panel told Pichian.
The panel proposes maintaining the party-list system, having only one member elected per constituency and not giving judges additional political roles.
You might be interested in this summary of various electoral systems: http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/RB/2005-06/06rb10.htm#isthere
Personally, I do not like the ‘first past the post’ system and prefer the number of seats each party gets to closely approximate the percentage of votes they received – that just seems fairer to me.
A fairy story
“IMHO Rather have junior reading this book than smashing bottles at the local pub, getting girls pregnant, and experimenting with yaa baa.” >> Is there only the alternative of reading this book or being deviant? Seems to be too narrow to be.
Back to the 1970s
nganadeeleg: Matichon (May 6, p. 11) has another article on proportional representation in Germany.
In fact, this piece is mostly a summary of a paper prepared on the German system by Ajarn Prinya of Thammasat University, also one of its vice rectors. He graduated in law from Germany.
Unfortunately, his presentation is not correct and rather confusing, which is why he says at the end that the bad point of the German system is that it is complicated. Not so.
For example, he says that the calculation is done based on the state level, i.e. in Germany’s 16 states. That’s wrong. The first step of calculation is to allot all the seats in the national House to the political parties, based on a) the number of total MPs in the House, b) the total number of party-list votes (after having subtracted all those parties that did not make the 5% threshold or gained at least 3 constituency MPs), and c) the party-list votes every party above 5% and at least 3 seats has received at the national level.
Only the second step concerns the state level. And the distribution of seats is just as simple as in the first step. This time, one will need a) the number of MPs a party was allotted in the first step, b) the number of party-list votes a party got in the respective state, and c) the total number of party-list votes of that party at the national level.
In both cases, the method employed is Hare/Niemeyer. After the party-list MPs of a party in one state have been calculated, the constituency MPs it won in that state are subtracted. If the number is higher, it can keep the seat(s), and won’t get any additional party-list MPs in that state. If the number is lower, the number of MPs is filled up by candidates from the party list.
If Thailand, the procedure would be even simpler, because you could use the national level and, perhaps, only four “regions.”
By starting with the state level, Prinya muddles everything up, and his examples confuse even more.
“Take a different trek”…to “timeless” Burma
Thanks for this example of cheesy journalism in The Advertiser. I read it as a big incentive for someone to do a better job.
Namely instead of painting idiotic rosy pictures that exoticise the pitiful Burmese situation or add to the Soros funded horror story Burma genre, that people inevitably just zone out on after 20 years, like myself, read about the zillionth rape murder in the Burmese jungle, but what good is a story like this going to do after 20 years of these stories over and over again.
An elite commando brigade of baby Thaksin entrepreneurs being carefully raised in the jungle to defeat the evil junta with the forces of capitalism, that would be more becoming of billionaire Soros, after all he’s a businessman isn’t he?…etc, etc…something like that , might provide some hope.
A fairy story
IMHO Rather have junior reading this book than smashing bottles at the local pub, getting girls pregnant, and experimenting with yaa baa.
Good parents shelter their kids in Thailand, until they get to a western country for their overseas educational and English fluency building experience, that is, but by that time they are probably ready to handle it.
BTW sometimes these overseas study jaunts go wildly wrong. I met one poor misguided Burmese kid being sheltered, looked after, and nursed back to sanity, by his compatriots at one of the Burmese merchant marine haunts around town (Bangkok).
The kid was in a pub in Australia, when a redneck (every country has them) gave him a hard time about being Asian. He just stuck his head down, swallowed his pride, and left, but….he came back the next day and burnt a random car parked in back of the pub. Was finally kicked out of Australia after participating in a demonstration that damaged the Burmese embassy in Canberra. Burma is a tragedy, agreed.
YouTube vs Thai dictatorship: The saga continues
The use of lese majeste and the extraordinary efforts made by the state to control the king’s public image suggests that, contrary to what so many people claim is the universal love of the Thai people for their king, there are in fact many people who would not hesitate to criticize the king and the monarchy, and especially the king’s undermining of democracy in Thailand, if only they had the opportunity to freely do so. This criticism is in fact already expressed in code – in the criticism of Prem, and especially (as Somsak has pointed out) of “sakdina”, which one finds now even in daily newspaper columns. The real test of the king’s popularity would be to abolish lese majeste. This concept of the “beloved king” is purely the public image that has been manufactured by the ratchakan and maintained by its media monopoly, lese majeste, and the appallingly deceitful attempt to turn the king into an object of religious devotion – similar to the Mao cult during the Cultural Revolution. What these people “love” is a chimera. This chimera is the only thing standing between the control of the ratchakan state and real democracy, which is why the ratchakan defend it so vehemently.
Howling dogs and Thai politics
Thanks for the link to Michael Connors.
I didn’t know about his work.
Can get his books in Thai libraries.
But the papers are in unlikely journals.
Too bad. Wish scholarly publications relevant to Thailand were more widely available in Thailand.
Good point at the end.
The army hasn’t been violent yet,
but that’s the way 1992 started,
but that’s probably why they stuck
Surayud in there, so things wouldn’t be so
confrontational like they were under Anand.
Plus everyone criticises the military for worryiing
about Thaksin and not being more assertive, but
that non-assertiveness, responsiveness is highly
correlated with the non-violent nature of things
so far. Let’s hope it continues.
Has the coup been good for democracy?
AFREETHAI, the solution is not to manage the profit, but to eliminate the profit (i.e. corruption) altogether.
In a democracy the people elect politicans to represent them. Do you think a general is a better representative of the people than a politician? Would you rather have a Junta in power than a politician? Remember, to remove a junta from power you often need to have lots of people die in the street and intervention from on-high; to remove a politician you only need to go to the election box. Which system would you rather have (and believe me you can’t have both).
Would you accept a junta who took power without claiming “pra mahakasat phen pramuk”?
Has the coup been good for democracy?
But Andrew Walker, have you NOT considered the thought that Mr. Bean would have been grievously insulted to be compared to you?
Stick to fairy tales Andrew Walker . . .
Has the coup been good for democracy?
To the Thai monarchy, it makes a lot of common sense to nurture constitutional democracy. A dictatorship is dangerous to the survival of the Thai monarchy . . . that is obvious isn’t it?
Today is World Press Freedom day
To what extent is press freedom a reflection of freedom within a nation? I would argue that the Freedom House ranking is simply an attempt at judging national liberalism. Doesn’t this in the end create further polarity because those in a liberalised society become judgmental and less understanding of those who are not in the sense that they are supposedly less free?
“Take a different trek”…to “timeless” Burma
Nicholas, The Advertiser is perhaps the worst paper in the country. If one of their journalists went to Burma they would probably try and build a Ray Martin stupa upon finding enlightenment. After building the stupa, the disinformation would continue unfortunately as the resulting articles would be a diatribe of gonzo, erratic confrontation that really they should have gone to Koh Samui.
I say this, and my father is reading it downstairs.
What a Manau looks like
The version I heard from a Kachin jade merchant linked to the origin of the manau to the ancestor of his clan, which was not the standard Maran, Lahpai etc, but a rather small clan that was limited to the Hkahku region. I can’t find my notes right now which has the clan name. Anyway, in this version, the boy was born with the ability to speak from birth, which scared his mother, so she left him in a tree to die. While in the tree, the birds assembled and planned the dance, and it turned out the boy could understand their language as well, and hence got the ritual of the dance. Later, he managed to persuade a passing stranger to rescue him and when he grew up he initiated the dance.
I suspect there are several different versions beyond the ones Tara and I have heard. I’d be really interested in hearing any Singhpo versions. I suspect the bird element of the story stays constant- since that is a completely plausible origin, but other details may vary.
Has the coup been good for democracy?
James Klein on the coup: “It’s always a danger and traditionally when there’s been a coup in Thailand and there are, this is now the 17th, since 1932, this would probably be the first time that there wasn’t some political agenda.”
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2006/s1749489.htm
No political agenda.
Has the coup been good for democracy?
“Was Thaksin good or bad for Thai democracy?
Answer: Thaksin was the worst thing to happen to Thailand’s democracy.”
Sure was. Plenty of evidence for that. But, he didn’t get rid of parliament completely, he didn’t get rid of free speech completely.
“Is Thailand’s King good or bad for Thai democracy?
HMK Bhumibhol is good for Thai democracy …definitely.”
Evidence or faith-based? The only serious studies suggest otherwise….
“HMK was a counterbalance against abusive leaders, democratically elected or otherwise.”
And who counter-balances an abusive palace, crown property bureauen, crown prince, etc.?
“But overall,
HMK’s record to help Thai democracy flourish is positive.”
What, like 1976 and 2006??
Has the recent coup been good or bad for Thai democracy?
For removing Thaksin who was the danger to Thai democracy, VERY GOOD. But let’s wait. Let’s see how the junta handle the delicate redrafting of the Thai constitution and the election to follow after that.”
Thanks General, we await your verdict.
YouTube vs Thai dictatorship: The saga continues
This lawsuit is stupid on so many levels.
Who are they going to sue? Who are they going to arrest?
YouTube/Google didn’t produce the video. Greedy American businessmen didn’t produce the video.
What is Sitthi going to do, hire a Thai special forces team to hunt down the maker of the video , kidnap him like Adolph Eichmann style, and bring him up on charges of crimes against humanity, only to have the king pardon him?
Actually, that sounds like a cool movie.
Can you imagine a Thai special forces team in their camoflauge dropped in the middle NYC, given the mission to kidnap the YouTube producer, and bring him back for the trial of the century?
Pure comedy. Better than Crocodile Dundee.
.
Has the coup been good for democracy?
For Taxi Driver:
Pls remember that who toppled the old regime in 1932?
In fact it was military. Was that the overture of military influence in Thai politics?
The solution is how to manage the profit between them and politician…where’s the people then?